Komatsu Life Repairs
by lilacsigil
Summary: Hachi can solve everything! Nana is skeptical.


"Nooooooo!" Hachi shrieked, scampering across the room and diving under the table.

"You can't escape the terror of The Boot!" Nana ran right after her, wielding one of her knee-high Vivienne Westwood boots, open at the top. She jumped onto one of the caf -style bench seats that she had built and crouched there, waiting.

Hachi lasted less than ten seconds in hiding. She wriggled herself around like the puppy after which she was named, and stuck her head out, looking for Nana. Nana's long arm swept down and shoved the open boot right over Hachi's face.

"Mmmff! Eeee! Blah! Your feet smell baaaaaaad!" Hachi wailed, swiftly retreating again.

Nana was triumphant. "Told you couldn't escape!"

"Why are you so mean to me?"

"Babe, I'm mean to everyone." Nana strolled over to the centre of the spacious room to set her boots up to air overnight.

Hachi wriggled out from under the table again, slightly more cautiously. "No, you're definitely the meanest to me."

Nana sat down on the pale green rug that Hachi had brought home from her job today. Nana held out her arms, and Hachi ran over for a hug.

"You're still mean, you know."

"Yeah, I'm the Big Bad Wolf." Nana hugged her. She couldn't stand it when Hachi wobbled her lip like that, even though she knew it was a big put-on.

"Oh, oh, does that make me Akazukin-chan? I should bring a picnic basket to rehearsal tomorrow! That would be fun! And we can have a picnic in the studio!"

Nana pointed out the obvious problem, though that had never made a dent in Hachi's enthusiasm before. "We don't have a picnic basket."

"Hmm. Well, I'll just wrap it all up in a tablecloth furoshiki then, like a big giant bento that my mum made!" She jumped up again and ran over to the kitchen to peer in the fridge. "Do you like the rug I got today? It's so pretty and pale, like grass in a cartoon, not like in real life. But I sat on it with no pants and it made dents in my skin, I didn't like that."

Nana waited for a break in Hachi's story. "You sat on it with no pants? Why?"

Hachi closed the fridge and moved on to the pantry. "Oh, when I was a baby, me and my sisters, my mum would let us run around with no clothes on and we had a big white rug and it was so soft, like a cloud. I thought that one might be soft like grass."

"It's acrylic, Hachi! It's from the 1960s what did you expect?" Nana paused. "Really? Totally naked? My grandmother would never have let me do that."

"Oh, she read in some magazine that it was good for children to get sunlight on their skin. I bet she never thought Nami-chan would grow up to be a tanning addict, though."

"Maybe all that running around naked had an effect on her? It made you buy a rug, after all."

Hachi came back to plop down on her knees, sitting crow-style on the rug with Nana. "See? It's even digging into my legs now."

"You need leather pants. It's perfectly comfortable for me."

Hachi sighed. "I don't have enough money to buy leather pants. Not even a leather purse. Not even one shoe."

"Because you spent it all on a pretty rug that hurts your tender skin!" Nana knocked her knuckles on Hachi's head, but not hard. "You're going to have to either grow a tough hide or save up some money."

"I think I'd better save up, then. I don't want a tough old crocodile hide like you." Hachi snuggled back under Nana's chin for another hug.

"Hmph. I like my crocodile hide." Nana rested her chin on Hachi's soft hair and pulled Hachi up to sit on her lap, safe from the scratchy rug.

~707~

"Hey everyone!" Hachi dashed into the studio in between songs. "I brought a picnic!" She kissed Nana on the cheek and Nobu on the lips, then, at Shin's mournful look, kissed his cheek and Yasu's head for good measure.

"Wow!" Nobu put down his guitar. "That's amazing! It's a pity it's raining today."

"That's okay! It's an indoor picnic!"

Shin had already put down his bass and was heading for the big red-and-white checked furoshiki that Hachi had carried in, when Nana slapped his outstretched hand.

"Chill, Shin. We're going to finish this rehearsal then eat. It costs to rent this place!"

Shin moaned. "But I can smell mayonnaise!"

"You're so hard-hearted," Nobu added, but he picked up his guitar again.

"Thanks, Hachi-chan," Yasu nodded at Hachi, and she smiled so hard that it looked like her face was going to fall off. She snatched the furoshiki away from Shin and took up position in the corner where she wasn't in the way.

"Shin, get that bridge right this time or no picnic for you," Nana warned, and counted them in.

Hachi tried to be unobtrusive but the beat was lighter and funkier than most of Blast's punk efforts and she was up and dancing before they'd even finished the intro.

"Okay! Perfect!" Shin slid out of his bass's strap the instant the song was over and dove over to Hachi and the picnic. She held out a hand to stop him and he looked up at Nana pleadingly.

"It wasn't perfect but we need a break," she allowed, and everyone cheered except Yasu, who was busy lighting a cigarette.

He and Nana shared the cigarette, and Hachi spread out her picnic on the unwrapped tablecloth. She'd packed it beautifully, and the potato salad and tiny sandwiches were all intact, as were the tiny hotdogs into which she'd cut little smiley faces. Slices of apple and nashi and segments of mikan on toothpicks were arranged in small plastic containers.

Shin and Nobu ate ferociously but appreciatively, as did Yasu and Nana, and Hachi beamed at them all like a benevolent feast goddess as she served herself potato salad and gnawed on a cucumber sandwich.

Shin lined up his toothpicks as he ate his way through the fruit. "Mikan aren't even in season, but this is tasty."

"I know! I saw them and they looked so cute and so lonely, there by themselves."

Nana chimed in, biting into a juicy segment. "So you brought them here and we ate them! What a happy story!"

"Now I don't want you to eat them," Hachi sulked, but cheered up when Nobu fed her one of the miniature hotdogs.

Nana lay down with her head on Hachi's lap. "I thought you were saving up money for leather pants?"

"We had everything already except the cucumber and the bread and the mikan, don't worry!"

Shin poked Hachi in the leg. "You're going to get some leather pants? That's a different look for you. You can borrow mine if you like."

"Only if I want to look like I'm stealing my little brother's clothes," Hachi giggled. "They'll be about a metre too long for me and you've got all those chains and studs all over them. If I get leather pants they're going to be elegant, not punk."

"Elegant, not cute?" Nobu finished the last of the sandwiches.

"No, it's the new me! I'm going to be a totally elegant businesswoman, and make lots of money to keep me and Nana in leather pants."

Yasu reached over for a piece of nashi. "What kind of business?"

"Oh, I'm going to fix people's lives. They'll call me up and say, 'Komatsu Life Repairs, help me! I've got nothing to wear and my boyfriend is dating an evil woman named Sachiko and my cat is ignoring me and my job doesn't pay enough!"

Nana poked Hachi in the belly. "Isn't that mostly your life?"

"Maybe ?"

Yasu chuckled. "Then you've got your first client."

~707~

"What are you doing, Hachi-chan?" Nana propped her umbrella against the wall to dry and shook raindrops off her boots.

Hachi had paper strewn all over the table and was resting her head on it in utter despair. "Budgeting! It's so hard! There should be a class in it or something."

Nana sat down opposite her. "There is a class in it, at least, there was at my high school."

"Mine too! Only I spent it drawing pictures of the teacher because he was hot! He had these little gold-rimmed glasses and his hair was pure silver at the temples and he wore a steel-grey waistcoat!"

"You remember all that about the teacher and nothing about the class?"

"Nothing!" Hachi wailed and threw herself face-down on the table again. "I can't even fix my own life and Yasu said I had to!"

Nana picked up some of the papers on the table. "This is a brochure for a vacation in Thailand. And this is a shoe catalogue. What kind of budgeting are you trying to do?"

"My entire life! Look, this is a pension plan! And this is when I'm going to New York! And this is a baby clothing catalogue for when I have some babies! Look at these little clothes, they're so cute!"

Nana burst out laughing. "Hachi-chan, don't you think that there might be a man involved when you have a baby? Or you might have found a different job by then, not one in a vintage store where you spend half your wages?"

"More than half!"

"Whatever. I don't think that Yasu meant you had to plan your entire life right now."

"But then I'll know!"

"No you won't! Besides, I'm going to be a famous rock star and pay you to come on tour with me."

"I can be in your entourage? Wow, what will I do?" Hachi ducked around the table to sit next to Nana.

Nana slung an arm around Hachi. "You can be in charge of my rider you ask for things I need in my dressing room, like cucumber sandwiches and vodka."

"And sexy boy dancers!"

"And cigarettes."

"And kittens! Calico ones, with little pink noses!"

"Okay, and food for the kittens."

"And a ball of wool for them to play with, of course."

Nana kissed Hachi on the head. "That is the least punk rider of all time."

Hachi kissed her back. "That's why you put me in charge! You're 100% punk, so if I don't mix in something else, you'll just ignite."

"Burn up in a second, that's me."


End file.
